


Darkness Turning

by frostii



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: M/M, Updates Will Be Slow, i combined the names of both of their books for the title, i tried to follow canon as best i could, my sons now, not beta read because we publish our garbage writing like men, slow-burn?? Kinda??, smol bits of qibli/moon bc that's canon, smth i promised a long time ago and just got around to actually working on it, this is the true ending qinter deserves, what tui did to them was absolutely unfair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostii/pseuds/frostii
Summary: This is the true ending Qinter deserved





	1. sanctuary

Winter sat on the pebbly shore of the cold lake, drawing his claws through the dark water. He watched the ripples move and catch the early morning light, still pale blue before the sunrise. Next to him, a young MudWing dragonet was trying to mimic him, though the swirls she made with her claws were nowhere near as gentle and graceful. He chuckled softly, and she furrowed her brow in determination. 

“Slower, Amber. You’re making too much noise,” he said to her.

“ _ You’re _ the one making too much noise,” Amber huffed, lashing her tail and making several pebbles scatter. She tried once more, slower, but the turns of her wrist were still not smooth. She tried for several seconds with intense concentration, then frowned.

“ARRRGH!” she roared. “I give up!”

Winter quirked his brow. “If you’re done making such a ruckus, let’s get you back to your brother before everyone wakes up.” He rose to his feet and stretched his limbs out, stiff from sitting for so long.

“It’s still so early. Nobody’s going to be up for a couple more hours, at least,” Amber said. 

“Look, the sun’s rising, and there’s a scavenger hunt today. A LITERAL scavenger hunt,” he added when Amber’s eyes widened with delight. Her face fell into a pout. “We’re setting out soon.”

“Another stupid scavenger hunt? What’s so interesting about those dumb little creatures, anyway?” Amber huffed, kicking a pebble.

Winter tipped his snout back and opened his mouth to retort, but then he heard Qibli’s mocking voice in his head saying  _ oh, look at me, I’m the queen’s nephew, all I do is walk around with my snout in the air and act like I’m better than everyone! _ Winter closed his mouth and sighed, already feeling a headache pulsing at the front of his skull. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

Amber reluctantly followed after him as he walked back to Sanctuary, the small village nestled in the foothills of the Claws of the Clouds Mountains where the remaining dragons in the Talons of Peace had settled down to live after the “defeat” of Darkstalker (to which Winter had no part in, might he add with much annoyance). He could feel his blood beginning to heat up and shook his head to clear any thoughts of Darkstalker.  _ He’s gone, and that’s all that matters.  _

Sanctuary quickly came into Winter’s view, and he could see a couple of dragons already milling about. Amber’s hut was on the outskirts of Sanctuary, a short circle-shaped mound of dried mud and grass with a straw roof. She lived with her half-brother, a six-year-old MudWing named Toad. He was often out on hunting patrols or scavenger hunts, so Winter barely ever saw him unless he was put into the same patrol or hunt as him. From what he knew of Toad and from how Amber spoke of him, he was a good role model, albeit shy and a bit awkward. He reminded Winter a lot of Moon. 

Amber nudged Winter’s side with her wing. “Have fun on your lame scavenger hunt,” she said as she flounced off towards her hut, long tail swaying happily behind her. 

“THEY’RE NOT LAME-” Winter started to shout before cutting himself off abruptly upon receiving a couple of sharp looks from the other dragons near him. 

Winter was just turning to head towards Riptide’s den when he heard someone yelling his name from the opposite direction. He swung around and saw Oryx, a wiry old SandWing who was in charge of receiving, organizing, and distributing all mail that came to Sanctuary. She’d been a messenger for Burn during the war, and had decided to continue doing her job even after Sanctuary had been set up. She said her reason for continuing to be a messenger was “if I was able to survive the entire war doing this, then the universe is trying to tell me that being a messenger is my destiny”. Winter had been amazed at the fact that she’d lived through the entire war while technically being a part of it. Especially under Burn, too. 

Winter headed towards her, and as he approached she pulled a scroll out of her bag. With shaking claws she passed it to him and smiled, displaying several missing teeth. “It’s from that Qibli again,” she said, blinking slowly at him with her cloudy black eyes. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t know where to send these letters,” Winter chuckled. “Or I could say that he’s just creepily obsessed with trying to be my friend.”

“ _ Trying  _ to be your friend?” Oryx repeated, tilting her head and making her earrings jangle.

“I was pretty adamant about not wanting to make any friends at Jade Mountain Academy, but  _ he _ was pretty adamant about the opposite of that,” Winter explained. “I honestly don’t know how I managed to put up with him.”

Oryx grinned again. “By the way, he hand-delivered this to me. He said he misses you and wants to see you again soon. It might be written in there, too.” She gestured to the scroll in Winter’s talons.

“Eh, he’s probably just gloating about how he ended up with Moon and I didn’t.” Winter shrugged, but inside he knew that was the farthest thing from the truth. All of Qibli’s letters to him had been pretty much the same, about how much he missed Winter and how much he worried about him. No gloating anywhere. He hardly even mentioned Moon at all, unless it was to say that she was doing fine and she misses him, too. 

Oryx’s eyes glinted in the golden light of the sunrise. “Oh, I doubt that. Have a good day.” She nodded once to him before heading back into her small den, quietly clicking the door shut. 

Suddenly intrigued to read Qibli’s new letter, more intrigued than he had been to read any of his earlier ones, he decided to head straight back to his den instead of visiting Riptide to ask about his schedule for the day. 

Luckily, his den wasn’t too far from here; he was there in a matter of minutes without flying. He opened the door and slipped inside, heading to the small slab of stone he’d propped up on a couple of rocks and pretended like it was a table. He unrolled the scroll to find an unusually short message. A bit skeptical, he quirked his brow and started to read. 


	2. pretty boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rivalry

Nothing. A whole three paragraphs of nothing. Winter scoffed and rolled his eyes, tossing the letter aside and rising from the table. _The way Oryx played it up, you’d think he’d proposed to me in this letter._ Instead, he’d gotten a typical Qibli-style letter. Updates on how things were going over in the Kingdom of Sand with Moon. A mention of Peril and Turtle’s latest adventure to the Sky Kingdom and how Peril had almost melted all of Queen Ruby’s ice sculptures, which had been decorations to make their incoming IceWing guests feel welcome in her palace. A bit of Kinkajou’s shenanigans here, something about Queen Thorn’s newest decree there. The same closing line as always: “I miss you and I hope we can meet up soon”. He’d been saying the same thing for months.

Winter scrunched his nose up at the paper. “If you want to meet up so bad, why haven’t you come to see me yet?” he whispered. After a moment of silent thought, he shook his head and headed out the door, deciding to get the rundown from Riptide after all.

 _Or maybe he wants me to initiate something for once,_ Winter thought as he approached Riptide’s cave. _That’s a Qibli thing to do._ Winter scoffed and shook his head again, then knocked once on the thin wooden door. Riptide appeared almost instantly, his pale blue scales gleaming in the morning sunlight and his eyes still heavy with sleep.

“Ah, here for your schedule? I’ve been waiting for you,” Riptide said, turning around and shuffling back inside his cave.

“I hope I didn’t make you wait _too_ long,” Winter called. “Oryx really hyped up Qibli’s letter to me today, so I took a quick detour to read it.”

“Let me guess, nothing different from the usual?” Riptide said, returning with a small stone tablet in his claws. When Winter nodded his head, Riptide chuckled and passed the tablet onto Winter. “She did the same thing to me with Tsunami’s letters. It’s almost as if she sees and hears things we don’t, you know? Or maybe she’s just old and losing her mind. Both are very possible, knowing Oryx.”

Winter mustered up a chuckle and thanked Riptide for the schedule, then turned and headed for the spot where all the other members of his scavenger hunt would be gathering. It was a pile of huge mossy boulders several hundred meters beyond the edge of the village, and had become a popular spot for young dragons to hang out at when they wanted to get out for some fresh air. Unless a scavenger hunting party was gathered there, it was open to anyone. It was also extremely popular among the SandWings and RainWings of Sanctuary, as it was a perfect spot for sunning. Winter had tried joining a sunning session after a young SandWing had begged him to come but had left after only a couple of minutes because he’d started to feel melty and insufferably _sticky_ and _hot._ He’d vowed to never try sunning again.

Winter arrived to find three other dragons already waiting at the rocks - a SeaWing named Crab, a MudWing named Bog, and a SkyWing named Freefall. They were all deep in a heated debate and at first Winter kept his distance instead of approaching, but then he heard snippets of their conversation.

“... Are you kidding?! How can you possibly think the salmon flavored ones are better?!”

“... You clearly don’t have taste buds, smokebreather! The salmon flavored ones are the best!”

“... The trout flavored ones are _awesome_ , just admit it...”

Winter cleared his throat and the all three dragons stopped arguing and turned to look at him with sharp eyes. “Sorry, hate to interrupt, but shouldn’t we get going?”

Crab arched one brow at Winter. “Don’t get your tail in a knot, pretty boy. We’re still waiting for one more.”

Winter bit his tongue to keep himself from biting back with a sharp retort. _Crab’s in one of his moods again. Ugh, great, another scavenger hunt that won’t be finished without some sort of trouble. He’s probably going to pick a fight, I can practically taste it._

Bog elbowed Crab’s side and the SeaWing turned his condescending glare onto the MudWing. “Leave him alone, Crab. He’s excited, that’s all. Drop the name calling, too. I don’t think he likes being called ‘pretty boy’.”

“Thanks for your concern, Bog, but I think I can handle Crab myself,” Winter snapped.

Crab shoved Bog out of the way and came almost snout-to-snout with Winter, his nostrils flared with annoyance. “What’d you say, pretty boy? You can ‘handle me’? Oh, we’ll see about that-”

Freefall grabbed Crab’s shoulder and yanked him back, cutting him off. “Crab, step off,” the SkyWing hissed.

Crab jerked his arm out of her grasp and marched right back up to Winter, smirking just enough to reveal his longest teeth. “You lookin’ for a fight, pretty boy?” he spat.

Winter took a deep breath, not breaking eye contact with the bigger SeaWing. _Called it._ “Absolutely not. I just want to do my scavenger hunt in peace.” _I swear on the three moons, if you call me ‘pretty boy’ one more time, I’ll claw that stupid smirk right off your face._ Winter dug his talons into the rock beneath him, using every ounce of willpower in his body to not leap straight at Crab and tear him to pieces. _Keep calm. Don’t attack first unless absolutely necessary. Don’t provoke any further._ Wait, what? That didn’t sound like him. He’d always been taught to _strike first_ and win the fight however possible. _Ugh, it’s Qibli talking through me again._ When was he ever going to get that SandWing’s voice out of his head?

“Guys, cut it out,” Freefall snapped, yanking Crab away from Winter and shoving him several meters away. “For once, can we have a peaceful scavenger hunt? Please?”

Winter stared calmly at the fuming SeaWing. “Fine by me. Crab?”

He flicked his green wings back and curled his snout up in disgust. “I guess, pretty boy.”

Winter’s eyes narrowed slightly and he could feel his muscles tensing, but he rooted himself to the rocks and stared calmly at the SeaWing. _You’re treading into dark waters, I advise you to go back before something bad happens to you._

Freefall’s amber eyes flicked nervously to Winter as if she were waiting in terrified agony for him to say something, but nothing came out of Winter’s mouth. She quietly turned away, drawing Bog over to her by the elbow and talking to her in hushed whispers.

Winter stared straight out to stare at the fields, refusing to make eye contact with Crab, despite knowing he was desperately trying to capture the IceWing’s attention and pick another fight. He was so focused on ignoring Crab that he almost screamed when someone tapped his shoulder.

Winter whipped around, heart leaping in his chest. Oryx was standing there, grinning. “I hope I’m not late to the scavenger hunt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whOOPS HERE GOES ME WRITING THIS AT TWO IN THE MORNING 
> 
> Threw in a rivalry to ~season~ the plot. For all the people who came here expecting Qinter, IT'S COMING. When? I don't know. We'll see how the story develops~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!! Please leave a kudos and a comment!! 
> 
> Come scream at me on Tumblr @frostiik @kouyousuggestions @silverpinkmochi
> 
> If y'all have Qinter fic requests, just send an ask to @frostiik


End file.
